Died on February 13

721

Chilperic II
king of Neustria from 715 and sole king of the Franks from 718 until his death.

858

Kenneth MacAlpin
king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror".
Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Scotland for much of the medieval period. Kenneth also indirectly created the current day British monarchy; the current representation being Queen Elizabeth II

942

Muhammad ibn Ra'iq
a senior official of the Abbasid Caliphate, who exploited the caliphal government's weakness to become the first amir al-umara of the Caliphate in 936.
Deposed by Turkish military leaders in 938, he regained the post in 941 and kept it until his assassination in February 942

990

Æthelgar
Archbishop of Canterbury, and previously Bishop of Selsey.

1006

Fulcran
a French saint.
He was bishop of Lodève

1021

Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
the sixth Fatimid caliph and 16th Ismaili imam.
Al-Hakim is an important figure in a number of Shia Ismaili religions, such as the world's 15 million Nizaris and in particular the 2 million Druze of the Levant whose eponymous founder Ad-Darazi proclaimed him as the incarnation of God in 1018. In Western literature he has been referred to as the "Mad Caliph", primarily as a result of the Fatimid desecration of Jerusalem in 1009, though this title is disputed as stemming from partisan writings by some historians

1130

Pope Honorius II
Pope from 21 December 1124 to his death in 1130.

1141

Béla II of Hungary
King of Hungary and Croatia from 1131.
He was blinded along with his rebellious father Álmos on the order of Álmos's brother, King Coloman of Hungary. Béla grew up in monasteries during the reign of Coloman's son Stephen The childless king arranged Béla's marriage with Helena of Rascia, who would become her husband's co-ruler throughout his reign

1200

Stefan Nemanja
the Grand Prince of the Serbian Grand Principality from 1166 to 1196.
He was an heir of the Vukanović dynasty and was the founder of the Nemanjić dynasty. He issued the "Hilandar Charter" for the newly founded monastery at Mount Athos

1214

Theobald I Count of Bar
the count of Bar from 1190 until his death, and a count of Luxemburg from 1197 until his death.
He was the son of Reginald II of Bar and his wife Agnès de Champagne. He accompanied his elder brother Henry I on the Third Crusade, and succeed as count when Henry was killed in the Siege of Acre

1219

Minamoto no Sanetomo
the third shogun of the Kamakura shogunate Sanetomo was the second son of the founder of the Kamakura shogunate Minamoto no Yoritomo, his mother was Hōjō Masako, and his older brother was the second Kamakura shogun Minamoto no Yoriie.

1237

Jordan of Saxony
The Blessed Jordan of Saxony, O.P.
was one of the first leaders of the Dominican Order. His feast day is February 15

1293

Obizzo II d'Este Marquis of Ferrara
Marquis of Ferrara and the March of Ancona.

1332

Andronikos II Palaiologos
Byzantine emperor from 11 December 1282 to 23/24 May 1328.
He was the eldest surviving son of Michael VIII Palaiologos and Theodora Doukaina Vatatzina, grandniece of John III Doukas Vatatzes. On 8 November 1273, Andronikos II married Anne of Hungary , daughter of the king Stephen V of Hungary

1389

Margaret of Ravensberg
the daughter and heiress of Otto IV, Count of Ravensberg and Margaret of Berg-Windeck.

1539

Isabella d'Este
Marchesa of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure.
She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dressing was copied by women throughout Italy and at the French court. The poet Ariosto labeled her as the "liberal and magnanimous Isabella", while author Matteo Bandello described her as having been "supreme among women". Diplomat Niccolò da Correggio went even further by hailing her as "The First Lady of the world"

1542

Jane Boleyn Viscountess Rochford
a sister-in-law of King Henry VIII of England.
She was the wife of George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford, brother of Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn. Jane had a small role in the judgments and subsequent executions of her husband and of two of Henry's wives, and was a lady-in-waiting to a fourth. Lady Jane also served as lady-in-waiting to her cousin-in-law, Henry's fifth wife, Catherine Howard, with whom she was executed

1542

Catherine Howard
Queen of England from 1540 until 1541, as the fifth wife of Henry VIII who referred to her as his "rose without a thorn".
Catherine married Henry on 28 July 1540, at Oatlands Palace, in Surrey, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged. Catherine was beheaded after less than two years of marriage to Henry on the grounds of treason for committing adultery while married to the King. She was the third of Henry's wives to have been a member of the English gentry instead of European nobility

1543

Johann Eck
a German Scholastic theologian and defender of Catholicism during the Protestant Reformation.

1561

Francis I Duke of Nevers
a commander in the French Royal Army and the first Duke of Nevers.
He participated in the suppression of the Amboise conspiracy

1570

Eleonora Gonzaga Duchess of Urbino
the eldest of the seven children of Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua, and Isabella d'Este.
Her father was a notorious libertine, her mother a famous patroness of the arts. On 25 September 1509 she married Francesco Maria I della Rovere, duke of Urbino, son of Giovanni della Rovere, duca di Sora e Senegaglia, and Giovanna da Montefeltro, and nephew of Pope Julius Their two sons and three daughters would all have progeny

1571

Benvenuto Cellini
an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, draftsman, soldier and musician, who also wrote a famous autobiography.
He was one of the most important artists of Mannerism

1585

Alfonso Salmeron
a Spanish biblical scholar, Catholic priest, and one of the first Jesuits.

1602

Alexander Nowell
a Protestant, Reformed, Calvinistic and Anglican theologian and clergyman.
He served as dean of St Paul's during much of Elizabeth I's reign. He was also the uncle and sponsor of another Reformed theological luminary in England, William Whitaker

1604

Catherine de Bourbon
the daughter of Queen Joan III and King Anthony of Navarre.

1608

Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski
a magnate of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a Ruthenian prince, starost of Volodymyr-Volynskyi, marshal of Volhynia and voivode of the Kiev Voivodeship.
Ostrogski refused to help False Dmitriy I and supported Jan Zamoyski

1624

Stephen Gosson
an English satirist.

1626

Stanisław Kiszka (bishop)
a Catholic Bishop and a convert from Calvinism.
He was a noble, member of the Kiszka family

1636

Barbara Sophie of Brandenburg
the daughter of the Catherine of Küstrin and Elector of Joachim Frederick of Brandenburg.
She was married to Duke John Frederick of Württemberg and after his death guardian for their minor son, Duke Eberhard III of Württemberg

1641

Andrzej Rej (diplomat)
a Polish diplomat.
Educated in Altdorf bei Nürnberg and Leiden, he was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Danish, British and Dutch courts in 1637 - he is one of the possible candidates for the subject of Rembrandt's A Polish Nobleman

1660

Charles X Gustav of Sweden
King of Sweden from 1654 until his death.
He was the son of John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg and Catherine of Sweden. After his father's death he also succeeded him as Pfalzgraf. He was married to Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, who bore his son and successor, Charles Charles X Gustav was the second Wittelsbach king of Sweden after the childless king Christopher of Bavaria and he was the first king of the Swedish Caroline era, which had its peak during the end of the reign of his son, Charles He led Sweden during the Second Northern War, enlarging the Swedish Empire. By his predecessor Christina, he was considered de facto Duke of Eyland before ascending to the Swedish throne

1662

Elizabeth Stuart Queen of Bohemia
was, as the wife of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, Electress Palatine, and briefly, Queen of Bohemia.
Because her husband’s reign in Bohemia lasted for just one winter, Elizabeth often is referred to as The Winter Queen. She was the second child and eldest daughter of James VI and I, King of Scots, England, and Ireland, and his wife, Anne of Denmark

1674

Jean de Labadie
a 17th-century French pietist.
Originally a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, he became a member of the Reformed Church in 1650, before founding the community which became known as the Labadists in 1669. At its height the movement numbered around 600 with thousands of adherents further afield. It attracted some notable female converts such as the famed poet and scholar, Anna Maria van Schurman, and the entomological artist Maria Merian

1693

Johann Caspar Kerll
a German baroque composer and organist.

1727

William Wotton
an English theologian,classical scholar and linguist.
He is chiefly remembered for his remarkable abilities in learning languages and for his involvement in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. In Wales he is remembered as the collector and first translator of the ancient Welsh laws

1728

Cotton Mather
a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author and pamphleteer.
Noted for fostering the Salem witch trials, Cotton Mather also has a scientific legacy due to his hybridization experiments and his promotion of inoculation for disease prevention

1732

Charles-René d'Hozier
a French historical commentator.
The younger son of Pierre d'Hozier, he was the true continuator of his father

1741

Johann Joseph Fux
an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era.
He is most famous as the author of Gradus ad Parnassum, a treatise on counterpoint, which has become the single most influential book on the Palestrinian style of Renaissance polyphony. Almost all modern courses on Renaissance counterpoint, a mainstay of college music curricula, are indebted in some degree to this work by Fux

1760

Nikolay Popovsky
a Russian poet and protégé of Mikhail Lomonosov.
Son of a priest serving at Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, in 1748 he was chosen by Vasily Trediakovsky at Lomonosov's behest amongst ten students from the Moscow Slavyano-Greko-Latin Academy to be enrolled in the university attached to the Academy of Sciences. While still a student at the university, he translated Horace's Ars Poetica into Russian verse, whereas Trediakovsky had produced only a prose rendition. The Horace translation, including the odes, was published by the Academy of Sciences in 1753. In 1753 at Lomonosov's suggestion he translated the first part of Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man" from a French version; publication was delayed until 1757 due to opposition by the Russian Orthodox church. He wrote an ode in honour of Empress Elizabeth's ascension to the Russian throne , and another in the name of Moscow University for her coronation. His poem in honour of Elizabeth on the occasion of the New Year's fireworks display of 1755, at one time thought to have been written by Lomonosov, is in fact a translation of Jacob Stahlin's poem "Verse an Ihre Kayserliche Majestät unsere grosse und huldreichste Monarchin gerichtet worden"

1774

Charles Marie de La Condamine
a French explorer, geographer, and mathematician.
He spent ten years in present-day Ecuador measuring the length of a degree latitude at the equator and preparing the first map of the Amazon region based on astronomical observations. Furthermore he was a contributor to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers

1787

Roger Joseph Boscovich
a physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, Jesuit priest, and a polymath from the city of Dubrovnik in the Republic of Ragusa , who studied and lived in Italy and France where he also published many of his works.

1787

Philip II Count of Schaumburg-Lippe
a ruler of the counties of Lippe-Alverdissen and Schaumburg-Lippe.

1787

Charles Gravier comte de Vergennes
a French statesman and diplomat.
He served as Foreign Minister from 1774 during the reign of Louis XVI, notably during the American War of Independence

1789

Paolo Renier
a Venetian statesman, the 119th, and penultimate, Doge of Venice.
He was considered a good orator and tactician, and served as ambassador to Constantinople and to Vienna. His election as Doge was unpopular, and he was the subject of numerous menacing letters at the time. Renier was succeeded as Doge by Ludovico Manin, who would be the last Doge of Venice. He married Giustina Dona in 1733, and Margherita Delmaz in 1751

1798

Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder
a German jurist and writer.
With Ludwig Tieck, he was a co-founder of German Romanticism

1806

Gabriel-Henri Gaillard
a French historian.

1818

George Rogers Clark
a soldier from Virginia and the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War.
He served as leader of the Kentucky militia throughout much of the war. Clark is best known for his celebrated captures of Kaskaskia and Vincennes during the Illinois Campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory. Because the British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Clark has often been hailed as the "Conqueror of the Old Northwest."

1821

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée
a French history painter and engraver.
With his elder brother Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, he stayed in Russia then at the Académie de Rome

1831

Edward Berry
an officer in Britain's Royal Navy primarily known for his role as flag captain of Rear Admiral Horatio Nelson's ship HMS Vanguard at the Battle of the Nile, prior to his knighthood in 1798.
He had a long and prestigious naval career and also commanded HMS Agamemnon at the Battle of Trafalgar

1833

Stanisław Poniatowski (1754–1833)
a Polish nobleman, a member of the wealthy Poniatowski family and a close relative to the last king of Poland, Stanisław II August.
He was the Commander of the Foot Guard of the Crown , Grand Treasurer of Lithuania and Starost of Stryj